Always Darkest House CallOn the Edge epilogue
by headrush100
Summary: When Beckett can't outrun herself, Castle and Lanie are there to pick up the pieces. Takes place in a shadowy window of time after Linchpin and before 47 Seconds. Please note that this is the epilogue to House Call the story from Lanie's pov and On the Edge the story from Castle's pov . Please read those first - it won't make any sense, otherwise. :-


It wasn't often that Kate Beckett gave in to anything. She'd seen the edge of the cliff coming, and accelerated right over it. She lay on her good side, riding out the current wave of pain in her side and chest, which dictated that her breaths be quick, sharp, and shallow. The pillow was damp with sweat and tears.

She'd escaped the city way over the speed limit. It felt good to break some laws now and then. Always had.

At Poughkeepsie, she'd almost come off the Harley when the pain hit, more powerful than any time in the past two weeks, and somehow managed to check in to a motel. At least she wasn't trapped in a stall in the ladies' room at work, trying to throw up as quietly as possible, and not pass out on the floor.

She closed her eyes, inhaled the harsh scent of industrial laundry detergent, and wished he was there.

_I need to see you in my office, Detective."_

"Girl, when you get a chance, come down here and see me. Don't make me come get you."

"Hello, this is Sharon calling from Dr. Burke's office. You missed an appointment today at eight am. This is the second appointment that you've missed. I would remind you that our practice requests twenty-four hours' notice for cancellations. Please give me a call back if you wish to reschedule an appointment."

"Beckett, I needed that report yesterday. I know things haven't been easy for you lately, but if it's interfering with your work, perhaps you should think about taking some leave."

"Kate, we need to talk. Well... I need to talk, and I'm guessing you do too. I came over today, but... I don't think you were home. Call me back this time."

Her phone was under the bed, where it had bounced when it hit the floor. It kept going off. She'd get it. She just had to rest first.

***

Hands sliding under her shirt startled her awake. _Not this time. Never again. She'd make them hurt._ She surged up with a shout and lashed out hard.

All she saw was a dark blur. Suddenly she was on her stomach, her cheek pressing into the rough sheet. Her wrists were pulled up behind her, and a warm, heavy weight lay across her back, effectively pinning her to the bed. Her muscles protested, and someone – was it her? – cried out, a thin, unnerving sound.

_"I can't get at her arm!"_

_"Anytime you're ready would be good."_

_"All right, we'll do it this way. Sorry, Kate."_

Hands jammed under her hips to undo her jeans, then pulled them down a little on one side. Panicked, she fought harder. Something wet touched her, followed by the sharp bite of a needle. She tried to wriggle free. Nothing happened; her muscles wouldn't respond, barely putting up token resistance now. The weight lifted off her. Someone rubbed her back, soothing her as she dropped into oblivion.

***

The first thing she heard was her own breathing.

"Let's try that again, shall we?" said a familiar voice. "Kate, wake up. It's me and Castle, and neither of us wants to get punched. We got your call, and we're here. Can you open your eyes?"

She did, and could have cried to see her friend perched on the bed beside her. "Hey," she croaked.

"Hey, yourself," said Lanie. "Don't worry, you're gonna be feeling fuzzy for a little while, until the sedative wears off."

Sedative? Something pulled at the crook of her arm, and she looked down to see a band aid stuck over a cotton ball.

"I took some blood while you were out," said Lanie, putting on a stethoscope.

Kate's heart sank. She couldn't simply dodge questions about how she was now; once Lanie was finished with her examination, she'd know everything. She couldn't hide from Lanie, anyway. Never could. Lanie slipped her hand up under Kate's t-shirt and pressed the cool disc to her chest.

Kate flinched. Lanie looked at her, and she quickly looked away.

"If I had to guess, and I usually do with you, I'd say that the PTSD has been kicking your butt for the last couple of weeks, and probably a lot longer," said Lanie. "And don't even try to tell me it ain't so, because I've got a stethoscope right over your heart, sweetie."

She turned her head. Castle was sitting on the other bed, his face a mask of remorse. A moment too slow, he smiled.

"Castle." It was the first time she'd seen him since getting out of hospital, and something about him was different. He looked tired and worried. "Are you okay?"

He smiled humorlessly. "I'm okay, and I'm really, really sorry," he said. "I hope I didn't hurt you."

She frowned, confused. She was the one who was sorry.

"I needed his help to give you the sedative," said Lanie. "I'm sorry, Kate. It was the last thing we wanted to do, but we had no choice."

Now she remembered his weight on her, and his crushing grip on her wrists. For him to see her like that and have to participate in that humiliating episode was beyond mortifying. Grogginess was taking the edge off it for now, but it would come.

The corner of his mouth quirked up. "If you wanna trade embarrassing stories, I bet mine are way worse than yours."

"I'm just glad you're here," she said.

He smiled. "Me too."

Lanie put her stethoscope away. "Now Katherine Beckett, what is going on with you?"

Cold beads of sweat prickled her face. "I'm gonna throw up."

Castle was off the bed and grabbing the trash can before she'd finished the sentence. Right now she was grateful; the monumental embarrassment could wait.

***

Lanie examined her more efficiently than any doctor she'd seen recently, which was quite a few. She seemed better able to identify problem areas than Kate herself, checking them gently but thoroughly.

"How long have you been in pain?" she said.

Denial was pointless. She steeled herself to make the admission she'd been avoiding for months. Both of them were staring at her, both of them would know if she was lying. "Since I was shot. It was getting better, but then after we were captured, it all came back." There.

"Show me where it hurts," said Lanie.

She touched her left side. "Here." She put a hand over her heart. "And here."

"Where your scars are."

"Yeah."

"That's where they focused on her, once they saw how it got to her," said Castle, his expression dark.

Lanie nodded. "And the throwing up?"

"Worse in the last couple of weeks."

"Like, how much worse?"

"A few times a day." She heard Castle make a noise, and Lanie took a syringe and a bottle from her bag.

"This'll put a stop to the throwing up," Lanie said, pulling on gloves. "Castle, can you help her out of that fancy motorcycle jacket?"

"I _like_ this jacket," she said, still groggy from the sedative.

"So do I," he said lightly, smiling when she caught his eye. Smoothly, he helped her out of the jacket. He crouched beside the bed with a wince, and rested his hand lightly on her shoulder, rubbing his thumb back and forth. It distracted her so much, she barely felt the injection.

"So you've been feeling pretty weak lately." Lanie reached into her kit and took out a clear bag of fluid.

"Yeah."

Lanie looked around, frowning. "There's nothing to hang this on. Castle, can I borrow you to come hold this?"

"'Course." He walked around the bed and eased himself on and over until he was right beside her. He propped a couple of pillows against the headboard, and slowly leaned against them. Lanie handed him the bag.

Kate cringed at the small reminders of what he'd suffered. She'd never forget the sound of his screams. Sometimes they still woke her up. "Is that going to hurt your ribs?" she said.

He smiled, almost undoing her. "Not if I'm careful."

She hoped that was true. The last thing she wanted was for him to hurt on her account ever again.

The big needle that was in Lanie's hand now took Kate right back to the days after her shooting, when there'd been nothing to do but stare at the ceiling in a drug-induced trance and watch the IV bags slowly empty into her swollen arm, only to be replaced by more. Her stomach turned, and her arm was pressed tight against her body. "Lanie, no."

Lanie looked sympathetic. "I'm sorry, but these fluids'll make you feel better quicker than anything. It won't be like before." She swabbed the back of Kate's left hand. "This is gonna be uncomfortable for a second, but I need you to keep your hand nice and still for me. Okay?"

It took everything she had not to pull away right then. Suddenly, Castle twined his arm with hers, bringing it a little away from her side, out where she couldn't protect it. He laced his fingers through hers. She couldn't look at him, but squeezed his hand as Lanie swabbed her skin. She looked away and held her breath through the sharp pain as the needle pushed in.

"Shiny," Castle said, quietly, as Lanie taped the needle in place.

She managed a smile for the geeky shorthand, and his acknowledgment of her courage.

Lanie looked relieved, and set to continue her exam. "How have you been sleeping?"

Kate swallowed. "Not so well."

Lanie cocked an eyebrow. "And that's an understatement, am I right?"

Kate's mouth twitched. "How do you know so much?"

"I've been pretty similar," said Castle.

"You have?"

"Mmm hmm." He hesitated. "Especially at first, when we were waiting for the results of the, ah, rape kit." He glanced at Lanie. "Lanie made it as easy as she could. She was great."

"He was incredibly brave," said Lanie. "Just like you were when you had it at the hospital. And those guys are going away for a long time, thanks in no small part to the evidence you submitted."

She was stunned. "You let _Lanie_ test you?"

He nodded.

"I'm sorry, Castle."

He shrugged. "Nothing for you to be sorry about."

"What was the result?" She blinked. "I mean, I'm sorry, you don't have to – "

He shook his head. "I wasn't raped. Just humiliated and bruised." He looked her in the eye. "You?"

"No, me neither. But if you hadn't pressed your panic button when you did, it might have been a different story." She took his hand. "And if it helps at all, when they were doing those things to you, I didn't look. I thought that that way, at least, we wouldn't let them win."

He looked relieved. "Thank you."

"I'm so sorry, Rick. I'm so sorry you had to go through that."

He shrugged. "Occupational hazard."

"Not for a writer."

He did smile at that. "For _this_ writer."

"I should've been there for you afterwards. I'm so sorry."

"You had to deal with what happened in your own way, and so did I. I understood that."

She shook her head. "Thank you, but that doesn't excuse it. You deserved better that that."

Lanie looked as though she was trying very hard to suppress a comment.

He gently rubbed her shoulder. "I forgive you. But don't do it again. Don't shut me out, Kate. We're in this together."

"You're right, and I won't," she promised. And she meant it.

Finally they'd arrived at the confession she'd been needing and dreading since that day. "It was my fault that we were taken like that."

He blinked. "No, it wasn't."

"If I'd been – "

"Kate," he cut her off, firmly. "It wasn't your fault. They launched an investigation, they interrogated those bastards who tortured us, hell, Gates even talked to _me_, and _nobody_ blames you for what happened."

"Well, _I_ do," she said.

"You blame yourself for the fact that we were forced off the road and taken to an abandoned garage at gunpoint?"

"They'd been watching me, Castle. They had photos of me talking to the witness. I should've been more careful. I shouldn't have taken her outside the station where anyone could see us."

He shook his head, and spoke slowly and forcefully. "It was not your fault. None of the investigating officers think so, Gates doesn't think so, and hell, I was _there_, I was _tortured_, and _I_ don't think so."

"Okay."

"'Okay', you accept what I'm telling you is true? Or 'okay', you're just humouring me?"

"Okay, I'll work towards having the confidence that you have." She squeezed his hand. "And I thank you for it." If _he_ could forgive her, or not even blame her in the first place, then perhaps she could forgive herself, as well.

A feeling of _wrongness_ stirred in her gut, and suddenly another wave of seizing cramps was on her. With a groan, she began to curl onto her side, but between them, Lanie and Castle kept her on her back.

Lanie lifted Kate's shirt and examined her throughout the attack. Castle murmured soothing words, and when she couldn't concentrate on the words anymore, she held on to the warm, reassuring tone. When attack finally subsided, she was exhausted.

"I'm so tired," she said, embarrassed as her throat tightened.

"I know, honey," said Lanie.

Castle's hand pressed against her forehead, and she closed her eyes, indulging in the comfort of the contact. In the contact with _him._

"How's her temperature?" said Lanie.

"Cool and clammy."

Lanie prepared another syringe. The needle sank in, and she neither knew nor cared what was in it.

Lanie told her anyway. "This is a painkiller and muscle relaxant. It should break the cycle of these nasty muscle spasms."

"I think it's anxiety," said Kate.

Lanie smiled slightly. "I think you're right. I've examined you as thoroughly as I can with the resources I have here, and from what I've seen so far, I'd say that part of the underlying cause is obviously physical. You've recently been hurt very badly, and those injuries were deliberately inflicted on top of the injuries that were still healing. But the throwing up, the sleeplessness, the muscle spasms, all of that; that's anxiety and panic attacks."

"And what happened when we first arrived...?" said Castle.

"What happened when we arrived, and you didn't know where you were, or who we were, that's your PTSD, which is another animal altogether," said Lanie. "Do you think that episode was triggered because I touched you on your chest, over your scars?"

"I don't remember. Probably."

"We both had a psychiatric evaluation after we were tortured," said Castle. "If they let you go back to work in this condition, I'm assuming you were... less than truthful."

"I needed to work," she hedged. "I can't give Gates any excuse."

"And?" Lanie prompted, gently.

"And... I was afraid if I didn't get right back on the horse, I never would. And... being home alone, like this, I just..." Her throat began to close up again. Castle's hand came down on her shoulder, his thumb rubbing over her arm again.

Lanie nodded. "There you go. But Kate, you do need some time. As you've found, you can only push your body and mind so far, before they give up on you. You need to give yourself a chance to heal."

"I'm taking some time off," said Castle. "And I'm taking anti-anxiety medication."

She looked up at him. "You are?"

"Especially at night."

She nodded.

"Do you think I'm weak for taking it?" he said.

"No, of course not." And she knew perfectly well what he was doing.

Lanie handed him a small brown bottle. "Would you mind?" he said, and Lanie took over the job of holding the IV bag so that he could open the bottle and shake out two little white pills. Lanie handed him a bottle of water, and he unscrewed the cap. He put the pills into her untethered hand. She stared at them.

"Can you take them, or do you need help?" he asked.

She got it. "I can take them." But she didn't move to do it.

"Go ahead, Kate," said Lanie. "I'm only surprised you haven't been prescribed them before."

"I was," she admitted. "I didn't take them. It took me so long to get off the drugs they had me on after I was shot, I didn't want to take anything else."

"You need to take them now," Lanie said, gently.

"They're really not so bad," said Castle. "They haven't interfered with my writing. In fact, I'm writing more, because I'm sleeping better. Just try them for a couple of days; if you don't like them, you can stop."

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Lanie's grateful glance to him.

"You're not going to drop this, are you?" she said.

"No," said Lanie.

"Not until you at least try it," said Castle.

Slowly, she put the first pill into her mouth. Castle held the water bottle to her lips.

"I can do it," she said. He sighed, and let her take the bottle. Immediately, it spilled. He took charge of the water again, and returned it to her lips. Chastened, she swallowed both pill and water.

"Good," he said. "Now the other one." He smiled to show her he was boss, and he knew it.

She rolled her eyes, and obeyed. Lanie handed him some tissues, and he mopped up the spilled water as best he could.

"Open your mouth," he said, and leaned down to look inside.

"Yes, I swallowed it; you don't have to go all Christian Grey on me."

He laughed, and took the IV bag from Lanie. "Sorry."

"And with that..." Lanie said, starting to close up her medical kit.

Castle stopped laughing. "Lanie, before you finish, would you check her left knee, please?"

She blinked, fighting the exhaustion and grogginess hard, and for a moment felt again the sickening impact of boot on bone. She'd been taken up with the pain in her middle, but he'd remembered everything. "Lanie, you've done enough, you don't need to – " But her friend's hands were already pushing up the leg of her jeans.

"They got _both_ of you on the left knee?" said Lanie.

"He kicked with his right foot, so he got us both on the left side," said Castle. "I can still feel it," he said, his hand going to the spot, "and I bet you can, too."

Lanie eyed her. "Can you?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "To the right of the kneecap." She touched Castle's knee lightly. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault, as we've established," he said, taking her hand in his.

Lanie's fingers probed expertly, quickly finding the epicenter of the pain. "Yeah, I can feel it. Can you stand to have one more injection, Kate?"

She nodded, and Lanie shot her knee full of anti-inflammatory.

"Okay. You need to rest that knee, and everything else."

"Yeah."

"We're gonna stay here tonight and get you stabilized."

"And when we get back to the city, I'm going to take care of you," said Castle.

She opened her mouth, but he covered it with his hand.

She looked to Lanie, who grinned and shrugged. She was going to get no help there.

"Just nod," said Castle, his hand still silencing her.

She nodded. Dignity aside, she was relieved, and grateful, that he was willing and able to do this. Dr. Burke was right; she should accept help when she needed it. And though she'd never admit it, the thought of him looking after her was something far beyond her ability to resist. She needed that like she needed to be there for him, now. She needed to be with him. They needed to talk. If he would ever get his damn hand off her mouth. She squirmed, and he released her.

"You have two options; your place or mine."

"Mine," she said.

He nodded. "Done." He shifted his position, and winced.

"We'll take care of each other," she said.

He smiled. "Of course." A mischievous expression crept over his face. "I'm guessing that Harley Softail parked outside is yours."

"Yes."

He cocked an eyebrow and grinned. "Will you give me a ride?"

Lanie caught her eye and she tried not to laugh. "I'd love to. Soon. When we're better."

He patted her shoulder. "I'll look forward to it. Lanie, can you hold this?" He handed her the IV bag, then slid over to the side of the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. He came out holding a washcloth, and turned out the main lights, so that the room was lit by a single bedside lamp. Carefully, he manoeuvred himself back into position beside her.

Lanie handed the bag back to him, and gave Kate's free hand a quick squeeze. "I'm just gonna make some notes. You try to get some sleep now, honey."

She couldn't help herself; she curled into his side as best she could without hurting either of their injuries. She let herself take the strength and comfort he was offering, and allowed him to gently clean up her face and lay the cloth across her forehead.

"Sleep now, Kate. You're safe."

She took his hand, closed her eyes, and slept.

End.


End file.
